I’ve worked for Norfolk County Council for 4 years now and before that in the public, private and voluntary sectors in roles covering children’s social care and social housing. The role of the Performance and Challenge function is to “hold the mirror” up to the organisation, appropriately challenge where we see problems or emerging trends and support improvement activities.

A key requirement for the service is that it is independent of the organisation’s front-line work and as such none of our staff have direct operational roles. The services in my bit of the world include Quality and Audit, User Involvement, LADO Service, Independent Reviewing Officers and Child Protection Chairs, LSCB management and Client Side Management (representing Children’s Services interests with Shared Services).

Our collective activity supports operational colleagues to understand and manage performance at individual, team, locality and service levels; our staff tell us that this really helps them in understanding how they and the service are performing.

This is a huge investment by Norfolk County Council but we know that and should be seen as an enabler for improved performance which in turn means better outcomes for our Children and Young People. As well as Social Workers and Managers for our operational services, my service is seeking good Independent Reviewing Officers (IRO) to help us ensure that our Looked After Children get the best possible outcomes, could this be you?

We’re really keen to talk to any qualified children’s social worker who is interested in the IRO role, so whether you’re an existing IRO, a social worker looking for a development opportunity, or even if you’ve never really considered the role previously, get in touch.

As we’ve all said – this is an exciting time for Norfolk; We are all committed to being the champions for children and young people in Norfolk, they deserve nothing but the best.

The NIPE team has enabled me to join Children’s Services with confidence, knowing that I will continue to be provided with a good training programme and the support needed to become a confident and competent social worker